Community-Based Interventions for Juvenile Firestarters: A Brief Family-Centered Model

Juvenile firestarting is an especially dangerous and costly problem affecting communities nationwide. The problem of children and fire has stimulated a small but growing research literature on interventions for reducing recidivism among juvenile firestarters. There is little known, however, about which elements of promising interventions are associated with reduced recidivism. The authors review the research literatures on the characteristics of juvenile firestarters and their families and the treatments used to prevent these children from setting fires again, and they describe an integrative theoretical approach to treatment. In addition, a novel, collaborative, family-centered intervention for juvenile firestarters is presented. The importance of using theoretically informed, fire-specific assessment procedures and linking data to treatment conceptualization, planning, and delivery is discussed.